Draft letter for parents to send to TDs seeking Statutory Guidelines on religion in schools
Here is a draft letter to send to your TDs seeking Statutory Guidelines on religion in schools. You can copy and paste the text and add in any information that you want about your own circumstances. The letter explains why this is topical at the moment. If you get a ...
An unlawful, systematic and stark attack on the right to not attend religious instruction
In most schools in Ireland the State Religious Education course is taught through the lens of the Catholic Church. Students are told that the course is suitable for all religions and none. Many students are coerced and some are forced into taking the course. The arrangements for students who wish ...
Church and State still undermine the right to not attend religious instruction in schools
Another year begins, and Church and State continue to undermine the Constitutional right to not attend religious instruction in schools. This is an area where there is no separation of Church and State, and where the State instead enables the mission of the Catholic Church to evangelise. There is a Constitutional ...
Irish constitution gives parents more rights than human rights laws do
Irish parents have more rights in relation to the education of their children under the Irish Constitution than they have under human rights law. The United Nations and the Council of Europe constantly raise the issue of the failure of the Irish State to protect the human rights of minorities ...
Schools may not instruct a child in a religion not its own without parental consent
It is constitutionally impermissible to instruct a child in a religion other than its own without the knowledge and consent of its parents. Despite the above, most schools and teachers instruct children in a religion not of their own. Curriculum religious education instructs children in religions not of their own. ...
Back to the future? In 1999, Micheál Martin protected the right to not attend religion class
When Micheál Martin was Minister for Education twenty years ago, he supported and protected the Constitutional rights of parents and their children. As Minister for Education in 1999, he was in no doubt about the Constitutional right of students to attend schools without attending religious instruction. He added that his Department ...
Atheist Ireland Submission on Primary Curriculum
Atheist Ireland has made the following submission to the NCCA on the Draft Primary Curriculum Framework. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Constitutional and Human Rights of Atheists 3. The 1999 Primary School Curriculum 4. The Draft Primary Curriculum Framework 5. The Recommendation from the Forum on Patronage on ERB & Ethics 6. ...
The Constitutional Right to leave the classroom during Religious Instruction
Most Irish schools insist that children, whose parents do not want them to attend religious instruction, must sit at the back of the class while religion is being taught. This is unconstitutional. Such children have the right to physically leave the classroom while religion is being taught. The inalienable rights ...
The right to not attend religion class, whatever it is called, in ETB schools
Atheist Ireland sent our recent Legal Opinion on the Constitutional Right to not attend religious instruction under Article 44.2.4 to the General Secretary of the ETBI Paddy Lavelle. The ETBI responded to us on behalf of all ETBs and claimed that the ETBI distinguishes between religious instruction and religious education. ...
ETBs again try to redefine religious instruction to undermine right to not attend
In an article in the Irish Times today the ETBs have again claimed that the right to not attend religious instruction under Article 44.2.4 of the Irish Constitution is confined to not attend religious instruction according to the rites of one religion. There is no legal basis for this opinion. ...